Ontologycore is a collaborative project exploring the intersection of internet aesthetics and creativity, mapping how styles from Y2K to Dark Academia emerge, evolve, and shape creative production.
The outcomes include a formal ontology of the structure and creative processes underlying internet aesthetics, and a knowledge graph with an expanded dataset spanning 26 aesthetics and 124 unique aesthetic element instances.
The ontology is modeled in RDF/OWL using Protégé and applies Rhodes' 4P theory of creativity (Person, Process, Product, Press) alongside the CREON ontology for modeling creativity theories. Classes and properties connect aesthetics, their elements, communities, creative processes, and dissemination platforms in a structured semantic graph.
Two files are available:
ontology/ontologycore-main.ttl — the core schema designed by the project team
ontology/ontology_with_all_instances.ttl — the full knowledge graph including all instances
This project was developed as part of the Knowledge Representation and Extraction course at the University of Bologna, within the Master's Degree Program in Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge.
The project will also be presented as a poster at Annual Conference of the Association for Humanities Computing and Digital Culture of 2026.